


Snowfall Kind of Love

by kaycares



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5531918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaycares/pseuds/kaycares
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or "The One Where Scott Really Loves Snow"</p><p>"You told Lydia I was coming because I wanted to see <em>snow</em>?" Scott had questioned Stiles while waiting to board his plane back in California. </p><p>"Okay, not my best work," Stiles admitted. "But I've been a little distracted. <em>You</em> try keeping Malia off her feet."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowfall Kind of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katarama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/gifts).



_Lydia twirls and twirls and twirls as she slowly raises her hands above her head in a perfect ballerina stance and lifts one skate from the ice. As soon as she’s achieved her pose, she can’t contain her giddy laughter. It’s contagious. Scott finds himself laughing along with her as her spinning becomes tighter and faster until her giggling forces her to spill out of that perfect skater form. She grabs on to his forearms to keep herself on her feet, but he’s laughing too hard, and before he can react, they both land on the ice with a solid **thud.**_

_“Ow,” she laughs as she rubs her soon-to-be bruised backside. “What was that?”_

_“I told you I suck,” he admits._

_“But you’re an Alpha now.”_

_“Yeah, but when’s the last time you saw a wolf on skates?” She doubles over in another fit of laughter, and he can’t help but join in again. As she clutches her sides, he slides across the ice until his hip brushes against hers before resting his hand beneath her wool skirt, against her plaid tights where he can leach some of her pain._

_Her laughter dissipates a minute later, and she sighs softly. “No, it’s my fault. It’s been years since I’ve done that. I’m too old,” she half groans._

_“No,” he disagrees with a shake of his head. A clump of snowflakes lands on her cheek and sticks. He raises his hand to cup that same cheek and gently brushes it away with his thumb. “You’re perfect.”_

_Lydia watches him with wide eyes as he leans towards her, but stops short of pressing his lips against hers when there’s suddenly a ringing in his ears. Her expression clouds with confusion when he freezes. The ringing sounds again and he glances towards the pocket of her coat. “Is that…”_

Scott jolts awake with the third ring. Bleary-eyed, he takes in his surroundings to find that he’s in his apartment, computer still open in front of him from when he sent off his final essay of the semester. The ringing is also coming from his open computer as a flashing message lets him know he has an incoming Skype call from Stiles. 

He accepts the call before he stretches, cracks his neck, and then swipes at his cheek with the back of his hand for any remaining drool. A second later, the image loads, and his screen is filled with the living room of Stiles and Malia’s apartment back in Beacon Hills. Stiles is sitting on the floor, Malia’s long legs and bare feet stretched out behind him on the couch. 

“Scotty!” Stiles says excitedly, face lighting up immediately. “What’s up!” 

“Not much,” he replies, then stops to clear his throat when he catches how groggy his voice sounds. “What about you guys?” The words are barely out of his mouth when he hears a muffled jingle, and the yellow lab who must’ve been curled up under the coffee table out of view suddenly appears.”Hey, Yoda,” Scott greets the dog who was his roommate at one time after Stiles and Malia adopted him as a puppy while they were all still in college. The dog lets out an excited cry in response, moving forward to sniff Scott’s image and effectively taking up the entire view of the webcam. 

“Get out of here,” Scott hears Stiles say in playful frustration as his hand comes into view, pushing the dog away. 

“C’mere, Yoda,” Malia’s voice says a second later, and the dog gives one more cry before retreating and settling with another jingle somewhere off camera. “Good boy.” 

With the dog gone, Scott can once again see Stiles and Malia’s lower half laid out on the couch behind him. He cranes his neck so his focus is on the corner of the screen, like that might give him a view of the room beyond Stiles’s camera angle. “Hey Malia.” 

“Hi Scott,” she says from somewhere off camera. 

Scott watches as Stiles turns his head on camera to look in the direction of her voice. “I thought you were gonna sit up.” 

“You told me to stop sitting up,” Malia’s disembodied voice responds. 

“I told you to stop _getting_ up,” Stiles says before turning back to the camera with an annoyed sigh. “One second.” 

Stiles slides out of view and disappears from the screen, and Scott takes this as an opportunity to try to wake up. He picks up the coffee mug still sitting beside his computer, and then regrets it the minute his mouth is filled with day-old cold coffee. At least he feels a little more with it by the time the camera on Stiles’s end stops moving. This time, Stiles is still sitting in front of the couch, but he can now see everything from Malia’s waist up instead. One of her hands holds up her head while the other one rests low on her swollen middle. 

“Better?” Stiles asks as he settles back against the couch. 

“Hi,” Malia greets him a second time with a slightly muted version of Stiles’s excitement. 

“Hey. How’re you feeling?” 

Her smile falls as she lets out a frustrated huff. “Bored.” 

“What she means,” Stiles adds with a meaningful glance over his shoulder at her. “Is that she hasn’t had contractions for a week, _and_ she hasn’t dilated any more, so _if_ we can _stay off our feet_ ,” he continues with a second pointed look back at Malia, “we should make it to the new year without a baby.” 

“Hey, that’s great,” Scott says, feeling a rush of relief. Of course, he’s talked to Stiles and Malia in the past week; he’s talked to his best friend daily since he moved out to Davis almost eighteen months ago to begin his next degree at the University of California. But since Malia’s first ER visit when she was barely 26 weeks pregnant, it’s been stressful watching from afar as his two closest friends have fought to find a drug to stop her preterm labor that wouldn’t be overpowered by her superhuman immune system. After almost five weeks of returns to the ER and bedrest, it’s comforting to hear they might’ve found the right one. “Has my mom been stopping by?” 

Malia suddenly leans forward on the couch so her face is right next to Stiles’s on Scott’s computer screen. “I do _not_ need a babysitter,” she insists, her expression stern. 

“No one said you need a sitter, Mal,” Stiles says gently, blindly reaching back to rub her arm in a way that implies they’ve spent _a lot_ of time in that living room just like this. “She and my dad have been bringing dinner by sometimes,” he continues when he turns his attention back to Scott. “And she checks in a lot. But I’ve been writing from home when I can. We’re making it work.” 

Scott nods, making a mental note to find excuses to hang out at their place when he’s back in Beacon Hills in a week because it can’t be easy to do investigative reporting from the inside of their small apartment. “So is that why you guys called? To share the good news?” he asks a few seconds later. “Wait, you guys have class tomorrow night, right?” He’s already ruled out their weekly Monday night Skype date because it’s Wednesday, but they also Skype most Thursdays now after their childbirth class at the hospital since Scott agreed to be the natural stand-in for the epidural which most likely won’t stand a chance against Malia’s werecoyote drug resistance.

Stiles nods while Malia rolls her eyes and falls dramatically back on the couch. Scott chuckles to himself and then stops abruptly when Malia looks back over in his direction. “Yeah, it’s tomorrow,” Stiles confirms as he begins typing something on his computer. “But we’re sitting this one out. Hospital tour, too much time on our feet. Plus, we practically live there now. So I think we’re good.” Malia moans on the couch, and Stiles once again manages to pat her belly without looking back. “But we,” he continues as he presses one last key on his keyboard emphatically, “wanted to give you your Christmas present.” 

“Dude,” Scott says with a laugh. “I’m gonna be home at the end of the week.” 

“And by then it’ll be too late. Go check your email.” 

“Okay, guys. Seriously. What’s going on?” 

“Go check!” Malia insists from where she’s recovered and is now propped up on her side again on the couch. 

Scott watches them both suspiciously for another thirty seconds before he finally pulls his phone out of his pocket. There’s a notification waiting for him to alert him to a new email from Southwest, not Stiles, which he quickly opens to find he’s been gifted a plane ticket to and from… “We’re going to Boston?” he asks as he looks back up at their matching excited expressions. 

“ _You’re_ going to Boston,” Stiles corrects. “Malia can’t fly, unless we want Norah’s birth certificate to read that she was delivered by a flight attendant at 35,000 feet.” 

There’s a nervous flutter in the pit of Scott’s stomach that he tries to ignore as he reads over the information in the email a second time. “But what’s in Boston?” 

“Don’t you mean _who’s_ in Boston?” Stiles corrects him a second time. 

The nervous fluttering grows stronger as he rereads the date for a third time to make sure it really says he leaves Friday for the east coast. “Lydia. But why am I going to Lydia?” 

“Because you need a Stiles,” Malia says matter-of-factly from where she’s ended up once again on her back on the couch, t-shirt now rolled up over the expanse of her middle. 

“Because you need to talk about whatever happened over the summer,” Stiles adds, and Scott feels his mouth go dry. It must show because Stiles nods with a smirk. “Yeah, I noticed, dude. You guys went from totally fine to totally weird overnight at the lake house. So you’re gonna fly to Boston and work things out and hopefully get some. And then -“ 

“Stiles - “ 

“And _hopefully_ get some,” Stiles repeats after he stops Scott’s interruption with a raised hand. “And then you’re gonna fly back here _together_ on the 23rd so we can talk about how not awkward it’ll be when you’re both there for your goddaughter’s birth.” 

Scott looks back down at the email instead of back at the expectant faces of his friends. That nervous flutter has become more of a nervous knot, made heavier by his guilt. There’s a reason why they’ve never talked about that incident at the lake house. “Stiles, man, you sure about this?” 

“This is me giving you my blessing, okay?” Stiles says sincerely on the computer screen, hand over his heart. “I know, I was crazy about her, but I’m over it. I’ve got these two girls now,” he continues with a nod in Malia’s direction. “And Malia wanted to give you a Stiles for Christmas.” He pauses there, head cocked to the side for a few seconds. “I mean, you’ve got me. Don’t go replacing me. But you deserve this,” he says with another gesture towards Malia. “So I think you should give this a chance.” 

The Lydia from his dreams, not so different from the Lydia at the lake house for the first half of the week the pack spent there, is back at the forefront of his mind as he mulls it over. There’s half a million reasons why a trip to Boston is a terrible idea, but his mind is too full of strawberry blonde curls and smiling brown eyes to think of any of them. “I’ll think about it,” he finally half-agrees.

“Scott, we’re broke,” Stiles argues. “We’re having a baby. We should _own_ the hospital by the time we finally pay back what we owe right now. And we bought you a plane ticket with our diaper money, so you’re going to use it.” 

“But we’re not -” Malia tries to argue back, but Stiles twists around to put a hand over her mouth. Scott knows their financial situation isn’t quite that dire. Stiles may not like that Malia inherited all of Peter Hale’s fortune when he was locked away, but it’ll keep them comfortable even after they’ve paid off their series of ER bills. Malia pushes Stiles’s hand away from her mouth and sends him a quick glare before turning her attention to Scott. “I’m stuck here for _nine more weeks_ , Scott. You need to go and send me pictures so I don’t lose my mind.” 

There’s a beat, then two of heavy silence. His best friends wear matching expectant expressions as he realizes he’s not going to be able to say no. “Okay, okay,” he finally relents. “I’ll go.” 

Stiles claps his hands excitedly before twisting back around to give Malia a quick celebratory kiss. His smile is infectious when he turns back to Scott, and he finds himself smiling in return, a few hundred miles away. “We’ll see you on the 23rd, buddy!” 

\---- 

The five and a half hour flight between San Francisco and Boston gives him too much time to think. He spends the day and a half with the ticket figuratively burning a hole in his pocket daydreaming about every possible fantasy, ranging from sweet, innocent pain relief on the ice rink to Lydia opening her door naked. And then once in the air, it hits him that this is _Lydia Martin._ This is the same girl who has watched him eat paste and kiss Stiles on the playground back when he thought it was acceptable to do that to _everyone_ you loved. This is also the same girl who was best friends with the first girl he loved, also the same as the first girl _his_ best friend _thought_ he loved. She’s the girl he kissed one time in Coach’s office and then lived to regret it. And then _almost_ kissed this summer at the lake house and then regretted it even more. 

By the time the plane lands on the opposite coast, he’s also beginning to wonder if maybe he’s been out of practice for too long. There hasn’t really been a girl in his life since Kira’s family moved back to New York in the middle of senior year. In college, there was a string of girls he took out a few times, but he always reached that point when he realized he was going to have to come clean about his alter ego. Mostly, he got comfortable in the role of third wheel while he was living with Stiles and Malia. And then after college, they settled back in Beacon Hills, and he moved on with his love for veterinary medicine with classes that consume his free time. Even with his mom ending their weekly phone conversations with _And are you happy?,_ it’s taken him until now to realize his own singleness. And with his mom now dating Sheriff Stilinski, he’s become even more single than her. 

And then there’s the much shorter cab drive to her building when he realizes that he could’ve used a haircut, and he’s about to show up at her door a week before Christmas empty-handed, save for his duffle bag. His only saving grace is that Lydia knows he’s coming. (“You told her I was coming because I wanted to see _snow_?” he had questioned Stiles while waiting to board his plane back in California. “Okay, not my best work,” Stiles admitted. “But I’ve been a little distracted. _You_ try keeping Malia off her feet.”) 

Before he can open his mouth to ask the driver to just turn around and take him back to the airport, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out to find that he has a text from both Lydia and Stiles. Lydia responded to his _On my way_ text with a smiley face emoji, while Stiles’s text is a much more annoyed _I’m going to assume your plane crashed_. 

_Haha_ , he sends back to Stiles. _Landed a while ago. Not there yet_. He’s about to pocket the phone again, but then stops and opens his message to Stiles again. _Still not sure about this man_. 

_YOLO man_ , he receives back almost immediately. 

_Seriously. What if this is a mistake?_

_It’s not. You’re so sexually frustrated Even I can smell it. From here._

Scott makes a face at his phone and types back _That’s your own scent_. It’s gross, then deletes it as he tries to steer their conversation back to the bigger issue. _What if she’s seeing someone?_

 _Whoa. What kind of wingman do you think I am? Already checked. Single and VERY ready to mingle._ Scott begins to type back a frustrated response when the ellipsis pops up to let him know Stiles is typing again. _Gotta go. Doc appt. Keep me updated._

 _You too_ , he responds, then switches back over to his conversation with Lydia. He never responded to the emoji before because _I can’t wait to see you_ sounded too intense, and he couldn’t think of anything better. With a shaky exhale, he pockets the phone again instead and hopes he’s thought of something to say when he finally finds himself face to face with Lydia. 

Unfortunately, by the time he’s standing on the concrete porch of her building, he still is at a loss for words that are both appropriate and open to her interpretation. He bounces his knees and blows against his cupped palms in an attempt to keep warm as he waits for her to open the door. The snow he apparently has been desperate to see is nonexistent right now, but the bitter Boston cold is a shock to his native Californian system. His eyes are beginning to water by the time he hears the sharp click of the lock disengaging on the other side of the door. But when the door swings open to reveal Lydia Martin in all of her cascading-curl-smiling-eyes glory, he can’t feel much of anything. 

“Hey, Scott,” she says warmly before stepping forward and wrapping her arms just above his waist. She’s warm and familiar in his arms, but he can’t remember ever being so aware of how easily her head tucks beneath his chin, or how he can feel every curve of her petite frame pressed against his front. 

“It’s good to see you, Lyd,” he somehow manages to respond. 

“You too.” She pulls away and beckons him in from the cold with a wave of her hand. “How was your flight?” she asks as she moves towards the stairs, and he follows her like a puppy. 

“Fine.” 

“You had good weather,” she tells him with a quick glance over her shoulder as she leads him up the stairs towards her apartment, and he nods in response. “You just missed a storm. I had no idea you were such a fan of snow.” 

“Yeah, I guess I am,” he says as he rubs nervously at the back of his neck. “But I’ve always wanted to see the city. I have family here.” It’s not entirely a lie; his dad has a brother who lives within the city limits, but Scott also has no contact with the McCall side of his family anymore. He counts himself lucky when Lydia just nods. 

They stop outside a door on the fourth floor, and he just barely catches a smirk on her lips before she turns away to unlock the door. A few seconds later, she pushes the door open to reveal her loft. “This is nice,” he says appreciatively as he glances around the relatively familiar space. He’s seen it via Skype for over a year now during Sunday night pack meetings, but it somehow feels even more like Lydia in person. With vaulted ceilings, soft lighting, and restoration hardware, a piece of her is reflected in every part of her home. 

“Thanks.” She eases the door closed and slips off her pumps as soon as she’s inside. Her tight-clad feet lead him a little farther into the apartment as she talks over her shoulder. “I don’t have a guest room, but I’ve been told that the couch is comfortable. Work is crazy for me right now, but I promised Stiles you would still see the city. And snow.” She finally stops and spins around when she reaches the side of the vintage red leather couch that serves as the focal point for the living area of her apartment. She raises an eyebrow in his direction this time, her expression quizzical. “There’s really not anything going on that I should know about? Everyone’s good?” 

He nods in agreement as he sets his duffle gently besides the couch. “Yeah. Everyone’s good.” 

“You’ve just waited until now to let on that you’re a snow enthusiast,” she adds with arms crossed over her chest and a tone that implies she saw right through Stiles’s poor excuse. 

“I like snow,” he insists as he raises his hands, palms up, and gives a shrug. 

She watches him in silent contemplation for another minute before she finally shrugs in response. “Well, hopefully you’ll get to see some while you’re here.” Spinning back around, she’s calling over her shoulder again as she moves on and he’s left to follow again. “Let me show you around.” 

Scott gets a crash course in the New Lydia Martin’s life over the next few hours, which isn’t so different from the Old Lydia Martin’s life except that she’s now halfway through her law degree from Harvard, and he has to squint to see any remnant of the supernatural in her life, tucked away in a little notebook she keeps beside her bed that he recognizes from Skyped pack meetings. Her loft is bigger than his apartment back in Davis and far more furnished with things on the wall and rugs covering the hardwood floors, but it still doesn’t feel _lived in._ Which is probably why he finds himself picturing her curled up in the middle of her king-sized bed and working on case notes at the small desk by the bay windows in her living space and brushing her teeth at one of the Jack-and-Jill sinks in her bathroom. (Stiles always questioned if his fantasies could even be considered fantasies when they’re so _domesticated_.) All he’s ever seen of her life in Boston is the view of that red leather couch from a few thousand miles away, and now that he’s there, he wants to see it all. So he braves the cold to see more of her small neighborhood, he snaps a picture of Beacon Hill for irony’s sake and sends it off to Malia, he lets her take him on her 15 minute commute to Harvard’s campus and finds himself more enthralled with the way she lights up when she talks about this school she’s dreamed of since she was a child than the gorgeous buildings that surround them. He types a text to Stiles that he loves snow so much, he may never come home, but then deletes it on second thought. 

It’s late by the time they return to her apartment that night, but he follows her into the kitchen and watches as she stands on tiptoes to pull down two wine glasses and then a bottle of red from the counter. “Wine?” she asks as she holds it aloft. “I don’t have any wolfsbane.” 

“It’s okay,” he says with a sheepish smile. “I think I’m passed that. Just wine’s good.” 

“Look at that. Scott McCall, all grown up.” 

“I’m just old,” he groans, struck by a sense of deja vu as the words echo in his own ears. He’s distracted a moment later as he watches her pour them each a glass before handing one over to him. Without anything laced through it, it won’t even relax his nerves, but that doesn’t seem all bad, considering his first sip leaves him wondering what the tart wine would taste like on her lips. 

“We all are,” she says with a timely tired sigh as she settles on one end of the couch, legs curled beneath her, and he settles on the other, leaving space for one more between their bodies. “Derek and Braeden are _married_ , Liam’s a senior in _college_.” 

“Stiles and Malia are having a baby,” he adds. 

Lydia shakes her head in a kind of disbelief. “Crazy.” She stares past him with a far away look in her eyes. He nods awkwardly, takes another drink while he wracks his brain for anything to say that isn’t one of the hundred things he’s wanted to tell her all day. She beats him to it, though, when she focuses on him again, a playful smile on her lips. “Does it count as grown up, though, if they weren’t trying to have a baby?” 

Scott laughs at his best friend’s expense, feeling a warmth not related to the wine spread through him when she joins in. “Did he call you in a panic, too?” 

She nods. “He asked me if I thought Malia could have a litter in human form.” 

“Yeah, he asked me too.” He savors the sound of her laughter when she giggles again, the sound high and light and so incredibly happy. “You know, they’re gonna be great.” 

“They’ll be the best,” she says with the same amount of fondness in her voice. It’s followed by a comfortable silence while he finishes off the remaining wine in his glass and she twirls her glass in small circles that are mirrored by the dark liquid inside. When she finally looks away from the whirlpool swirling in her glass, she looks tired. “Everything’s okay, right? Your mom thinks they figured it out?” 

Scott nods with a tired sigh of his own that shakes in his lungs. “It’s a good sign Malia’s made it this far.” He tries not to acknowledge the flutter that accompanies her mention of the faith she’s placed in his mother. He also tries to ignore how sad she looks now as she stares into the depths of her mostly empty wine glass, and how ethereal it makes her look in the dim lighting of the living room. 

“They weren’t going to tell anyone her name until she was born,” she says without looking up from her glass. 

He finds himself moving his head in affirmation even though he’s not sure if she even notices. “They started calling her Norah after they ended up in the ER the second time.” 

“Like they want to use it as much as possible.” The _just in case_ that finishes her sentence is left unsaid, but her eyes are shining when she looks up. “Stiles called me, the first time. The second, too. I stayed up with him all night so he could know I didn’t feel anything.” 

Scott had stayed up all night, too, listening over the phone while Stiles had rambled his way through the plausibility of a baby who weighed less than two pounds being able to heal herself and texting his mom the questions he couldn’t ask his best friend. He had been ready to jump in his car and drive the three hours back to Beacon Hills at two in the morning. It had never crossed his mind that Lydia would be awake on the opposite coast line, taxed with the burden of being the first to sense something wrong. _You get to help people_ , she had reminded him over the summer at the lake house. _I only get them when we can’t help them anymore_. He hadn’t known what to say then, but he had empathized with the sharp ache that came with the realization that they still found too many bodies and not enough survivors. His solution had been to kiss her - or, more accurately, _try_ to kiss her because she had pulled away with the excuse of needing to check the coffee supply before the rest of the house began to wake up, and they had mostly avoided one another for the rest of the week. 

The problem is, he can only think to kiss her again now, too. The silence feels heavier than it did before as he watches her, carefully assessing how he would eliminate the distance between their bodies. The fact that she hasn’t tried to move or looked away seems to work in his favor, too. He stalls for another second, then two, as he focuses on her slightly parted lips, stained red from the wine. Before he has the chance to most likely embarrass himself a second time, she shakes her head. “It sucks being the pack’s human death detector,” she says with a bitter laugh. 

He sets his glass down on the floor in front of the couch and leans forward with his elbows on his knees, subconsciously moving towards her. “It’s that bad still?” 

“No.” She shakes her head with a wave of her hand, then downs the rest of her glass of wine in a way that implies it _is_ that bad. “I shouldn’t have said that. I wanted to do it.” 

“But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Did Derek help at all?” 

“Of course.” She plays with one of the bracelets on her wrist, studying it as she twists it back and forth, and her heart speeds up. 

“Don’t lie, Lydia,” he says gently. Scooting over and inch or two on the couch, he places a hand on her tight-clad knee. 

Lydia lifts her face to stare back at him with wide brown eyes. With a sigh, she begins again. “He didn’t know much about the banshees his mom knew. He was too young then. But he remembers they could predict deaths, sooner than I can.” She twists to face him so that his hand slides off of her knee, but she’s quick to place her hand on his knee in return. “I don’t want to talk about this. What about you? How’s Davis?” 

“Lydia, c’mon. I want to help.”

“But I'm _fine_.”

“But you're _not_ fine,” he argues. He reaches for her hand, and she subtly pulls it back to her glass before he has the chance. 

“I don't think you can help.” 

Her words ring with defeat, and for the second time in ten minutes, he's not sure of what to say. In moments like this, he still doesn't know how to be an alpha; he has no idea where to begin with helping her to hone her own banshee abilities so she can do more than just find victims. He finds himself watching her, searching for the words to tell her that they're all still figuring it out, but she's come the farthest by far. 

Instead, his phone suddenly vibrates against the couch, and he jumps at the sound, knocking his empty glass over with his foot. The glass is no match for the hardwood floor. 

“I'm sorry,” he says quickly as he drops to his knees to begin picking up the pieces. Lydia is beside him kneeling almost immediately. 

“Don't worry about it.” Their conversation is forgotten as they work in silence until Lydia suddenly gasps. They both stop to watch as bright red blood begins to bloom from the cut down her index finger. 

“ _Shit_ ,” she mutters as she pushes herself to her feet. 

“God, I'm sorry.”

“No, it was me.”

He gets to his own feet and follows her into the kitchen. She flips on the light and turns on the water before sticking her finger under the faucet with a soft hiss of pain.

“Towels?” he asks, and she motions towards a drawer just to his left. He takes out a dishtowel and then moves to the sink, standing beside her so their shoulders brush. He watches as she pulls her hand away from the water, blood appearing just as quickly as before. With a groan, she sticks her finger back under the stream from the faucet. “It looks deep.”

“It'll be fine.”

“Here. Let me see.” Her shoulders are squared, like she’s already assumed her position on the defense to inform him that she’s fine a second time. But when she tilts her head up to look back at him, Scott can almost see the way her fight slowly fades. There’s a moment of hesitation and then a huff, and then she holds out her injured hand like a gift. He takes a step closer to her as he moves his hand beneath hers, cradling the back of her hand before he wraps the towel firmly around her injured finger, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. He waits half a second before he begins to draw away that pain in dark lines that move up his arm to nearly his elbow. It hurts worse than he anticipated, almost enough to take his breath away, but he doesn’t let it show. 

Lydia’s eyes stay locked on the lines on his arm until they disappear, but his eyes stay locked on her so he doesn’t notice that he’s managed to take all of her pain until she lifts her head. He’s distracted again by her full lips and the flush the wine brought to her cheeks. And it might just be in his head that’s spent the past week dreaming about how those same lips would feel against his own, but it seems like she leans towards him, pulled by that same invisible force.

 

A moment later, she snaps out of it. “It’s gone,” she says as she wraps her own hand around the towel and begins to pull her finger free from his grasp. “I should go clean this up.” 

Even with her finger free, she doesn’t turn and walk away. He knows deep down inside that if he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer, she’d let him kiss her this time. But his mom’s voice is in the back of his mind, repeating the list she had given him once after an emotionally draining shift in the ER of all the ways a girl can say no without saying no, something his 25 year-old mind that can interpret a carefully disguised _no_ no longer needs. Especially not now with Lydia. And then he thinks about it for so long, he begins to wonder if maybe he doesn’t _know_ she wants to be kissed right now. The moment is lost then, his chance up, and he nods and lets her go. 

He cleans up the remnants of the broken glass without another incident and then retrieves his phone from the couch to find a series of texts from Stiles: the reason for the broken glass in the first place. _Head down, four pounds, attractions are still closed for business. Can you see how excited we are?_ his text reads, followed by a picture of Malia in the doctor’s office flipping off the camera, which looks like it was taken against her will. After the picture, there’s a single text that just reads _You?_

 _Great news,_ he texts back and thinks about leaving it at just that. A few seconds later, the desire to let Stiles know he was right about this being a mistake wins out. He sends one more text that just says _No snow_. 

\----

Scott wakes up the next morning to harsh sunlight and the smell of fresh brewed coffee. He had admired Lydia’s floor-to-ceiling windows the afternoon before when he was taking in the view of the city from her loft, but he had failed to think about the amount of light they would let in this early in the morning. He throws an arm over his barely opened eyes and reaches for his phone on the end table behind his head. The screen lights up to tell him that it’s only 7:30, but judging from the noise coming from the kitchen to his left, Lydia is already awake. Pulling his arm away, he turns his head and squints in the direction of the noise to find that same sunlight catching in Lydia’s hair. 

With a groan, he sits up and slides his legs off of the couch, wincing when the soles of his feet hit the cold hardwood floor. Everything feels cold to him, despite his abnormally high alpha body temperature, and Scott shivers as soon as he’s up and out of the cocoon of blankets Lydia had lent him the night before. He fishes an old lacrosse sweatshirt out of his duffle and pulls it on before crossing the room to the kitchen where Lydia has obviously been up for a while, judging from the empty coffee cup and half-eaten bagel sitting in front of her at the island. She’s also already showered and dressed, looking more like she’s ready for court than the tour of the city he was promised the day before. 

“Good morning,” she says with a smile when she finally looks up from whatever she had been scrolling through on her phone. Setting it down on the island, she slides off her stool and picks up her empty mug before moving towards the coffee pot. She pours herself a second cup before she holds it up as an offering. “Coffee?” Scott’s too busy yawning to be able to talk, so he nods instead as he runs a hand through his messy hair. As he moves to the stool beside hers at the island, she stands on tiptoe to retrieve a second mug and then pours him his own steaming cup. “Did you sleep okay?” she asks as she slides it in front of him. 

He nods a second time as he takes a sip, welcoming the warmth that spreads through him as it slides down his throat. “It’s bright out here in the morning.” He takes a second drink before setting the mug down and twisting on the stool to face her where she’s still standing beside the island. “Why’re you all dressed up? You look like you’re going to work.” 

Lydia’s smile becomes a kind of sheepish apology, and Scott feels his stomach drop with disappointment. “I am.” 

“But it’s Saturday.” Not to mention, he’s traveled across the country to see _her_ , but he doesn’t say that out loud. 

“I know,” she says in a way that sounds like a second apology. His eyes remain on her as she moves to a corner of the kitchen he had missed before where her laptop sits on the table. “But it’s a huge case - Well, actually, it’s my professor’s case, but we have a lot of work to do by Monday, so we’re meeting this morning.” While she talks, she manages to close the laptop, wrap up the cord to her charger, and pack it all into her bag. “ _But_ ,” she continues as she swings the bag over her arm and returns to where he’s sitting. “You’re still going to see Boston. My friend Soni should be here by ten. She’s going to show you around so you’re not stuck here all day. I’ll meet you for drinks this afternoon?” 

It’s on the tip of his tongue to offer to go with her to wherever it is she’s headed to work on this case. A less patient voice in the back of his mind keeps repeating that he came here to spend time with her, not some friend he’s never met. In reality, he gives a nod and offers her an understanding smile. “Yeah. That sounds great.” 

“Great,” she echos. She takes another long drink from her own coffee cup before she sets it down in the sink. When she moves past him, she presses a quick peck to his cheek and then immediately moves on. “I’ll see you this afternoon, then. And tonight, I promise, we’ll go out together.” 

Soni, it turns out, is great. She’s a whirlwind of energy that shows up fifteen minutes late in a shower of apologies, interrupted by segments of the story of her failed attempt at a yoga class that morning. She’s beautiful with her long legs and dark hair and eyes with just the smallest hint of an accent still left from, he learns later, her childhood spent in Lebanon. She knows Lydia from Harvard, but she’s been in Boston for most of her life, so she’s the perfect tour guide for the afternoon. She takes him to the public gardens and the Museum of Fine Arts, and then past the giant Christmas tree in Boston Commons, which he sends a picture of to Malia. She’s a good companion for the day who can tell him the Tea Party Ships are a little overrated, but he should definitely convince Lydia to go to the North End tonight to see the holiday lights. But she’s no Lydia. 

It also starts to feel a little weird by the time Scott realizes Soni was raised by a single mom, worked her first part-time job in an animal hospital, and happens to share his belief that no current music is a match for the 80s ballads he grew up singing along to with his mom. 

_I think Lydia’s trying to set me up with her friend,_ he texts Stiles once they’ve claimed a table at the bar Lydia swore she’d meet them at and Soni’s stepped out to take a phone call of her own. Almost immediately, his phone begins to buzz with an incoming FaceTime request. He presses accept before he can change his mind. 

“ _Dude,_ ” Stiles says in way of greeting, eyes wide. “We’re never going to be able to afford to put Norah through college because we paid for your plane ticket, and you’re with her _friend_?” 

Malia, who is laid out behind him on the couch again, rolls her eyes at Stiles’s dramatics. Scott frowns instead. “Trust me. This wasn’t my idea.” He’s momentarily distracted by the scenery behind them as it dawns on him that they’re not in their apartment, and the plaid couch Malia is occupying looks pretty familiar. “Where are you guys?” 

“My dad’s,” Stiles says with a gesture towards the rest of the room. “It’s our Couch Tour of Beacon Hills. You should be jealous.” 

“Where’s Lydia?” Malia asks before Scott can resume his story. She leans forward with a hand on Stiles’s shoulder to help keep her there. 

Scott sighs. “Working.” 

“ _Working_?” Stiles questions as he makes a face. “It’s Saturday in Boston too, right?” 

Scott ignores Stiles’s comment as he sighs. “She took off this morning to go work on a case and left me with her friend like I’m some little kid. Do I look like I need a sitter?” 

Malia gives a shake of her head that seems very empathetic while Stiles raises an eyebrow. “Well, is she hot?” 

Scott quickly glances towards the door Soni disappeared out a minute ago, already blushing at the idea of her overhearing Stiles’s comment even though she’s nowhere to be seen. Once that split second of panic has subsided, Scott looks back down at both Malia and Stiles’s expectant faces. “Are you _serious_?” 

“Scott, c’mon,” Stiles groans with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “I haven’t had sex in six weeks. I’m supposed to be living vicariously through you, and you’re giving me _nothing_ here.” 

“That’s because there is nothing. I’m telling you, I have way too much in common with this girl for this to not be a blind date.” Stiles opens his mouth like he’s about to repeat his question, and Scott is quick to cut him off. “No - I mean, she’s fine - But I came here for Lydia.” 

“Tell her that,” Malia chimes in as she settles back against the couch. “Tell her you came for her. The snow idea was stupid.” 

“Hey,” Stiles starts sharply as his head whips around. “The snow idea was -” 

Scott misses Stiles’s defense because he catches the door swinging open out of the corner of his eye and looks up to see Soni slip back inside. She gives him a smile as she spots him, beginning to make her way back towards their table. “She’s back,” he says when he focuses on the phone in his hands again. “I gotta go.” 

“Tell her,” Malia says one last time. 

“Mal’s right,” Stiles agrees instead of goodbye. “Tell her why you’re there.” 

Scott sighs noncommittally as he hangs up the call, just as Soni slides into the seat across from him. As much as he had resented her company earlier, he welcomes the distraction now. “Everything okay?” she asks as she settles in, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. 

“Yeah,” he replies quickly with a nod. “My best friend - “ 

“The one having the baby?” she cuts him off. Scott stops short, and his brows furrow together in confusion. Across the table, Soni blushes. “Lydia’s mentioned them before,” she explains. “And that you’re close. You guys grew up together, right?” 

He nods again, slower this time as he takes in this new information. “Kind of. We were friends back in high school.” He reaches for the mostly neglected beer in front of him, then stops when his curiosity wins out. “She talks about us?” 

“Constantly,” Soni replies with a roll of her eyes and a smile. An unfamiliar feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. Lydia’s apartment contains subtle hints of the life she left behind in California. There’s a framed picture of her with Allison together, both with big smiles that betray the fate Allison was met with later that year. The address to the apartment Liam, Mason, and Hayden share is on a post-it stuck to the door of her fridge, alongside the invitation to Derek and Braeden’s wedding from a year ago, and right below an ultrasound picture that Scott recognizes as belonging to Malia, which Stiles must’ve sent around the same time they started calling the baby by name. And then there’s the little notebook beside her bed and the weekly Skype calls she makes from the couch, but that’s it. Not enough to give the impression that she talks about any of them constantly. “But,” Soni interrupts his thoughts. “I want to know more about you. You’re in vet school, right?” 

“Right. You’re at Harvard with Lydia?” 

Soni nods, twisting the neck of her beer bottle with her free hand. “Except Lydia likes to say environmental law doesn’t count as _real_ law.” She gives him another warm, easy smile, and Scott can’t help but think she probably _would_ be his type if he hadn’t already fallen so head over heels. Which makes it that much harder when she asks her next question. “What made you want to be a vet?” 

Scott is halfway to forming an answer involving his mom and his desire to make a difference when he changes his mind. They’re dangerously close to first date territory. “Look, Soni,” he sighs. “Today’s been really great, but I’m in California -” 

Her breath comes in a rush of a sigh as she sets her beer bottle down hard and leans forward across the table. “So I’m not crazy? This feels like a set-up?” 

“I mean, isn’t it?” he asks, a little startled. He had just assumed that whatever this was, she knew more than he did. 

“I think so. Which is crazy, because I couldn’t do that to Lydia.” 

“Do what?” 

Soni pauses. For a minute, she watches him in thoughtful silence, and Scott shifts uncomfortably, feeling like they just had some kind of unspoken conversation he missed. Then she reaches across the table to rest a gentle hand on his arm. “She talks about home constantly, but she talks about you the most.” 

His stomach does a rollercoaster kind of flip and his mouth is suddenly dry. Too dry to make his heavy tongue move. He’s spent the past 24 hours trying to picture Lydia in all of the places he’s seen, piecing together the mystery of her life on the opposite coastline. Never once did he think about her talking about him walking around campus or sitting here with her friend. “ _Me_?” he finally manages to ask, sounding as startled to his own ears as he feels. 

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Soni says quickly, blushing again. She shakes her head and avoids making eye contact, eyes locked on the tabletop. “Lydia would _kill_ me.” 

Scott will live to regret it, but he stares a little dumbfounded as Soni takes a drink of her beer to fill the silence. He’s never been very good with words. Stiles is always ready with a witty comeback, Malia says whatever she wants with no care of the consequences, Derek is full of wisdom that his dark, brooding silences betray. And Lydia - Well, Lydia is building a career out of the power of her words. But Scott gets tongue-tied, like he does right now, and stays silent instead. 

Soni places her hand back on his arm once she’s set her bottle back down. “She thinks the world of you.” 

Scott starts to nod, but his attention is drawn to the door again. It swings open, letting in a bitterly cold wind along with Lydia. He catches her eye, and she smiles, seeming to warm even that harsh winter cold. He never gets the chance to let Soni know that Lydia _means_ the world to him, too. 

\---- 

His second day in Boston greets him with a sky turned grey and heavy. The clouds are thick and low, giving the illusion that if he reached up, he could touch them. The paper predicts snow, along with Lydia’s weather app, which she excitedly shows him over coffee, but he’s too distracted to notice the quickly changing weather. 

Lydia’s always been the observant one, catching small details that Scott would look right past on his own. But now he notices the way she keeps reaching across the table at dinner to put her hand on his forearm. And the way she hangs on his every word when he tells her about his latest clinic assignment later that night when they end up back on the couch. And the way she lights up the next night when she drags him along to a friend’s holiday party when she spots him across the room. 

But he also remembers the way she pulled away from him two nights ago, seconds before he would’ve tried to kiss her a second time. And the afternoon before, Soni had felt like it was a blind date, too, even with her belief that Lydia might be her biggest competition. And they had barely made it into her friend’s condo that night before she was introducing him to Josh, another friend of hers who was even less his type than Soni. 

“Do you think Lydia thinks I’m gay?” he finds himself asking Stiles later that night when as he sits on the receiving end of another FaceTime call. Lydia disappeared to her room for some case-related call as soon as they returned, which hasn’t fostered much more confidence. On screen, Stiles facepalms, and Scott’s confidence reaches an all-time low. Even the dog stares at Scott dejectedly from where his head rests on the top of Malia’s belly. When neither of them rushes to answer his question, he pushes on. “Why are we FaceTiming again? Do you guys not text anymore?” 

“Because I’m sick of being here,” Malia half moans from where she’s curled up beside Stiles on their bed, looking even more miserable than she sounds. “And I’m sick of Stiles.” 

Scott knows his best friend well enough to brace himself for the comeback that will follow, so he’s shocked when Stiles turns to Malia instead, tucking her hair back behind her ear and letting his hand linger on her cheek while he kisses her forehead. It feels so intimate, Scott looks away out of respect. A second later, Malia pushes Stiles away and disappears from the screen when she stands up from their bed. Stiles watches her wherever she is off camera before turning his attention back to Scott. “She’s actually just sick,” he sighs as he runs a hand through his hair. “Because the bedrest thing wasn’t enough, y’know? Now, she’s got this bug, too.” 

“She’s okay though?” 

Stiles nods. “Your mom says the biggest thing is making sure she stays hydrated. Norah should be fine. But what about you?” The screen shakes as Stiles swings his legs off the bed and gets to his feet, leaving their bedroom. “Lydia thinks you swing both ways now?” 

It feels trivial now in the aftermath of hearing about what Stiles is dealing with, but Scott finds himself spilling to his best friend all the same. “I don’t know. Tonight, the friend she left me with was named _Josh_.” Josh also has a background in medicine, volunteers at a shelter, and seemed to know just a little too much about Scott, but he leaves this part out for now. 

“Okay, well first of all,” Stiles starts as he begins to count on his fingers. “Someone needs to tell Lydia that Derek Hale makes everyone question their sexuality, so her judgement of your sexual preference may not be fair. And second of all,” he counts off on another finger. “I thought you were going to talk to her.” 

“I was. I mean, I am.”

“Scott, you leave tomorrow. “ 

“I tried, okay? But she’s constantly pawning me off on someone else.” Scott runs a hand over his face like it may physically clear away the frustration he hears in his own voice. It hasn’t been lost on him that his plane leaves tomorrow afternoon. Lydia will be on that plane, too, but the plan had been to figure all of this out before they left Boston. Now, he couldn’t possibly feel farther away from figuring this out. “Maybe Soni’s wrong. Maybe this was a terrible idea.” 

“You don’t know that, not if you don’t talk to her. And you gotta talk to her.” Stiles finally settles on the couch in the living room, and he waits till he fills the screen again before he continues. “I know I keep making jokes, but we would’ve paid for your ticket a hundred times if it meant you’d be happy.” 

“But I am happy,” Scott argues, feeling a little affronted. It’s the same question he fields from his mom every week, a question Lydia asked him the night before. Sure, there are plenty of nights he spends alone in his apartment back in Davis, and he occasionally misses having the constant company of his former roommates, and yeah, it has been a while since Kira left, and he does sometimes wish he had someone in his life again, but that doesn’t mean he’s not happy. 

“I know that, but I want you to be happy _with someone_. Because you deserve this.” Stiles motions around the empty room that Scott knows is normally filled with the life his best friend has managed to create himself. “Because the last six weeks have been hell, Scotty, you know that. But I’d do it a million more times for Malia. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The baby, too. And I think this could be it for you.” 

“Really?” 

“Trust me, I wouldn’t have sent you across the country if I didn’t. So don’t screw this up.” Stiles looks away from the phone before Scott can argue again, focused on something Scott can’t see. What he can see is the way his knee starts to bounce in and out of the very bottom of the screen, which shakes with the same rhythm. “I should really check on Malia again. But do it, Scott. You don’t want to leave there with greats.” 

“I know,” Scott sighs in agreement. “Thanks man.” He promises to let Stiles know how it goes, and then he lets his best friend return to his own life while Scott is left on Lydia’s couch, his own foot beginning to bounce while he waits. More than once, he thinks about getting up to go to her room before he loses the nerve, but then he catches her murmured voice as she continues on with her phone call about the case that couldn’t wait. Instead of losing his nerve, though, he becomes more determined, so he’s ready for her when she finally rounds the corner into the living room in mid-sentence. 

“Okay, so I was thinking we could do brunch before we leave with -” is as far as she gets before he stands up from where he’s been waiting with a shake of his head. 

“No,” he says simply with no animosity in his voice. “No friends. I want to spend the morning with you.” 

Lydia cocks her head to the side with a smile that makes Scott feel borderline annoyed. “I’ll be there too. But I thought you could meet -” 

“ _No_ ,” Scott repeats himself. “I don’t want to meet anyone else. I met Soni. I met Josh. But I flew across the country to spend time with you.” 

There’s a moment when it dawns on her, when he can visibly see her expression change as she understands. She looks surprised, but then she recovers quickly. For a second, he thinks she might try to argue that she hasn’t been trying to set him up with someone else from the minute he landed, but then she just looks sad instead, and a little older than she had looked when she spotted him across the room earlier that night. “Scott, please. Don’t do this.” 

“Don’t do what?” 

“Scott, you deserve someone like Soni,” she says gently. “Or Josh’s sister, the one who’s a nurse. You’re so good, Scott. You have such a big heart. You deserve someone who can love you like that.” 

“But I don’t want someone like Soni,” Scott says as he takes a step closer to her. He takes it as a good sign when she stands her ground instead of taking a step back. “She’s great, but she’s not you.” Stiles and Malia’s words run through a loop in his mind that he already knows won’t stop until he’s listened. So he swallows hard and then continues. “I want you, Lydia. I came here for you.” 

He’s not sure how he expects her to react. Surprised, maybe, or even shocked. In his dreams, she would take his face in her hands and kiss him to save him from the awkwardness of a third attempt at a kiss, but he doesn’t hold his breath. What he doesn’t expect is what really happens. Lydia sighs heavily instead as she nods. “I know.” 

Scott’s brows furrow together in confusion as he stares back at her. “You know?” 

“You really thought I believed you flew across the country for snow?” she asks him as she raises an eyebrow to echo her question and crosses her arms over her chest. “Plus, Stiles sold you out when he called me to warn me against hurting his best friend. Which is why I introduced you to my friends - because I want you to find someone, too. But that someone isn’t me.” 

“How do you know that?” Scott argues, Stiles’s voice still ringing in his ears. 

“Because I’m not like you. I’m not that selfless, I don’t think I ever will be. And I can’t save people like you can. I’m not right for you.” 

“No, Lydia,” he disagrees with a shake of his head. “You’re perfect.” 

Lydia begins to shake her own head, but Scott doesn’t give her a chance to disagree again. Instead, he closes the little distance that still exists between them, takes her face in his hands, and kisses her like he should have two days ago. Hell, like he should have months ago when he sat beside her on the front porch of the lake house, realizing for the first time that he had fallen for Lydia Martin. He feels her grow tense beneath his touch, startled, but it lasts for long a second, and then she kisses him back, relaxing into him like she’s done a hundred times before in all of his many different dreams. She tastes sweet and familiar, like coming home to Beacon Hills after he’s been away. Her mouth fits against his in the same way, too, like they’re two pieces to the same puzzle. Or she’s the piece he just recently realized he’s always been missing. His dreams don’t come close to holding a candle to the reality. 

When they finally pull apart, it’s only because they both have to catch their breath. Her brown eyes are wide as she tilts her head to look up at him, and he finds himself torn between making her understand just how amazing she truly is and kissing her again. She doesn’t give him a chance to decide, though, when she turns her head, distracted by something outside the window. 

“Look,” she tells him, and he turns his head to watch big fat flakes float down outside the window. “It’s finally snowing.” 

\---- 

He wakes up the next morning with Lydia nestled in his arms, her strawberry blonde curls fanned out across his chest, and his heart feeling a little fuller. His to-do list mounts as he tries to keep still in an attempt to let her sleep. He should really update Stiles, they need to check flight times for today, he needs to figure out how many hours they can spend right here in this bed before they have to return to Beacon Hills. At some point, they should probably act like adults and have a conversation about what bedsharing means. But he decides all of that - especially the last item on that list - can wait. 

A few minutes later, she stirs with soft noises and a gentle smile. There’s a moment when she must realize she’s not alone because her eyes fly open and she looks up at him, startled. But then her heart slows in his ear and the tension leaves her shoulders as she smiles at him instead. 

Scott leans down to kiss her before he can second guess himself. “It’s still snowing,” he greets her after he pulls away reluctantly. 

She turns her head to look out the window where the snow continues to fall quickly. Slowly, she nods. “Like a banshee.” His confusion must show when she turns her attention back to him because she suddenly laughs before continuing. “It’s something people say here. _It’s snowing like a banshee_.” 

“But what does it mean?” 

“There’s a lot of snow.” She lays her head back down as she looks back out the window. “It means we’re not going anywhere any time soon,” she amends. 

Lydia is right, it turns out, when they finally pull their phones into bed and start to check flight statuses. Their flight is already canceled, and there are no flights out of the city at all before well into the afternoon. They’re in the process of finding a flight that will leave much later that night when Scott’s phone begins to ring in his hand, Stiles’s name flashing across the screen. 

“Hey, man,” he answers with a sigh. “Did you hear the news?” 

“Scott, you need to get on the next flight back here,” Stiles says without even acknowledging Scott’s questions. He sounds breathless in a way that’s familiar, and familiar in a way that turns Scott’s stomach. “It’s gonna cost a fortune to fly now, I know, but I swear, we’ll pay for your ticket. Just get here.” 

Scott sits up, his body instinctively preparing to jump into action, even though his pack is on the other side of the country. His mind moves just as fast as he tries to remember the last time he heard from Liam or Hayden or Derek. It’s been years since he’s been more than a few hours from Beacon Hills for this long because there’s usually an uneasiness that settles beneath his skin as soon as he crosses the state line. But here, Lydia has consumed his every thought and left him blind-sided. “What’s wrong? What happened?” 

“Malia woke -” A muffled sound in the background cuts Stiles off, and then his voice is farther away and gentler. “Hey, it’s okay. Breathe, Mal. Just try to breathe.” 

Stiles’s exaggerated breathing falls into the pattern Scott watched his mom teach Stiles years ago when he had a panic attack in the middle of a game of catch the week after his mom died. Scott’s stomach clenches with the same anxious fear now as it did then. “It’s happening again?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer. “Are you guys heading to the hospital?” At the mention of the hospital, he catches Lydia moving to sit up in the corner of his eye. Her arm slides around his waist, and her chin comes to rest on his shoulder. Scott responds by pulling the phone away from his ear and switching it to speakerphone. “There’s still something they can do, right? To stop it?” 

Stiles’s breathing stops abruptly, and rustling fills Scott’s ear as his best friend brings his phone closer to his mouth again. “No, man. Her water broke. This is it. So you guys need to get here. Like now. Because this is happening fast.” 

“We can’t,” Scott says automatically before he can think better of it. 

“What do you mean you _can’t_?” Stiles counters, voice edged with fear. “She’s your goddaughter. She’s your _beta_ , Scott. And she’s eight weeks early. We need you.” 

Lydia’s hand finds Scott’s hand that isn’t holding the phone and wraps around it, giving him a gentle squeeze before she takes over. “There’s a blizzard, Stiles. All flights are canceled.” 

“That’s not possible. There _has_ to be a flight.” 

“We just checked,” Scott jumps in. “The soonest we can fly out is tonight.” 

“But Malia’s in labor now.” Stiles's voice has taken on that breathless sound again, and Scott worries that he’s seconds away from needing someone to breathe with him instead. But Stiles has always been the one with a well-developed plan. Sending Scott here was a plan. The plan was also to have Scott nearby to take Malia’s pain and intervene if anything out of the ordinary happened when the baby came. And now that Stiles’s plan has failed, Scott doesn’t have one to use as back-up. There’s another muffled sound on Stiles’s end, followed by a heavy sigh. “It’s okay, it’s okay. They’re just snowed in.”

“What about Derek?” Lydia suddenly cuts in before Scott can join in Stiles’s panic. Scott turns his head to see Lydia in profile. She’s the picture of calm, the complete opposite of Stiles. 

“What _about_ Derek?” Stiles asks. 

“Call him,” she responds. “He can take her pain if she needs it.” 

“Okay, but-” 

“And you have Melissa,” she continues while Scott can only watch as she carefully talks Stiles down from the ledge. “She’ll be there, right?” 

Stiles gives an exasperated huff. “She’s there already.” 

“Okay, so you’ll have her there. Derek can take her pain. And you can call me whenever you need to, but I’ll let you know if I feel anything. 

Scott gives Lydia’s hand a squeeze this time, well aware of the weight that falls squarely on her shoulders. There’s a lengthy silence that follows on Stiles’s end before he sighs. “You gotta promise. Anything at all. Okay?” Before Lydia can respond, there’s another muffled sound. “What?” Stiles asks, voice farther away again. “ _Still_? It’s still coming out? How much water could you have in there?” Scott involuntarily makes a face, wishing he wasn’t hearing this conversation, while Stiles laughs on the other end. “It’s okay, I promise. You can get in the Jeep. The Jeep can afford to get wet. We can get rid of the Jeep.” His words are followed almost immediately by a sound that’s more animalistic. When Stiles talks again, he doesn’t sound so far away. “Okay. We really gotta go.” 

“Okay. I promise I’ll call,” Lydia says. 

“We’re gonna get on the first plane back home, too. We’ll be there as soon as we can,” Scott adds. 

“Tell Malia we love her. And Stiles? Good luck.” 

“Thanks,” Stiles says. “We’re gonna need it.” 

Stiles hangs up, and Scott and Lydia both stare at Scott’s own phone until the screen goes dark. He lowers his hand to place the phone beside him on the bed, but then they both just stay that way, with her front pressed to his back and his fingers laced through her own. It’s new, this feeling of Lydia’s bare skin against his back and her arm circling his waist, but it already feels familiar, like spending time with her since his childhood somehow conditioned him for this moment now. But his mind is still back in Beacon Hills, focusing on his frantic best friend and the baby he’s about to welcome _way_ ahead of schedule. 

Lydia is the one to break the silence first. She doesn’t lift her head from his shoulder, so her words become a soft vibration against his neck. “Stiles just told her they could get rid of the Jeep.” 

Scott nods, sharing in her disbelief. “He just picked her over his most prized possession,” he says with a laugh and a shake of his head. Lydia’s laughter fills his own ear, and he can feel the way some of the tension leaves her shoulders where they’re pressed against his. “I think he’s gonna be really good at this.” 

“Me too.” 

“And you,” he continues. Lydia pulls away in order to look at him, clearly confused. He gives her hand another gentle squeeze while he brushes her hair back behind her ear with his newly free one. “You were awesome. You gave him a plan, calmed him down. You’re good at that, you know.” 

“At calming Stiles down?” she asks, eyebrow raised. 

“At finding a solution.” He presses his mouth against hers before she can argue him and savors every second of that excited feeling that still comes with the sudden realization that he gets to do this now. He gets to kiss her now. He gets to let his fingers tangle in her long curls. He gets to let his other hand slide lazily beneath the sheet to rest against her bare backside. In the little capacity he still has to form a coherent thought, he silently thanks Malia and Norah for being reason enough to postpone that adult conversation about exactly what this means. 

Lydia surprises him when she pulls away by resting her head against his chest with a sigh. Gently, he lays back down and pulls her with him until they’re back where they started, like Stiles’s phone call never happened. At least, he could fool himself into believing that if it weren’t still written across Lydia’s worried expression. “But if I feel something,” she says eventually, her voice smaller than he’s ever heard it before, “I have to call him.” 

“You won’t have to,” he insists without hesitation. Her brown eyes are hopeful when she stares up at him, and he swallows hard, saying a silent prayer that he’s not lying to her right now. “The goal was thirty weeks. Malia made it two weeks farther than that.” But as the words leave his mouth, he hears Stiles’s voice in his head, reminding him that she’s still eight weeks early. That he had promised to be there for his friends. Scott sighs as his gaze drifts to the ceiling so he doesn’t have to look at her when his own confidence wavers. “I should be there.” 

“We’ll get there.” 

They make a good team, Scott finds himself thinking more than once in the hours that follow. His inner alpha embarks on a major guilt trip at almost the same time she begins to worry about her inner banshee being woken, but she assures him that he couldn’t have known this would happen when he left for Boston, and he finds plenty of ways to distract her. They take turns, at first, contacting the airport while the other fields updates from Stiles. It starts as a picture of the two of them, Malia now clad in a hospital gown, with matching smiles, and is then followed by numerous updates, written in Stiles fashion to defy the seriousness of the situation. But by the time Stiles’s texts wear thin enough in places to make out just how trying this experience is and why they call it _labor_ , Scott is pulling Lydia back to bed and trying to distract her from the anxious feeling that radiates from her skin. They use each other as the snow begins to slow outside, finding comfort and distraction in learning one another’s bodies and the way they fit together. He feels her worry melt away along with his guilt until he can only feel grateful that it snowed. 

By the afternoon, they have seats on a flight that will leave before midnight. He can still smell Lydia’s anxiety when he wraps his arm around her, but it’s not so overpowering, and between constant calls and texts to Stiles, Scott feels like he’s missed out on far less, even from so far away. The snow has stopped by the time their phones vibrate in unison with a text sent to their pack group message that reads _Waiting for the doctor to start pushing_ , humor forgotten somewhere in the past few hours. And then an hour later, _She’s here!_ , followed by a picture of a tiny, tiny newborn on Malia’s chest, little mouth opened wide in a wail. Scott’s not sure if he kisses Lydia first or he kisses her, but they nearly miss their flight after their impromptu celebration. 

The layover in Chicago isn’t ideal, but they somehow find a corner of the terminal that isn’t overcrowded with families trying to get home for Christmas and call their best friends. As soon as the call connects, Stiles and Malia fill the screen, huddled together on a hospital bed. Stiles’s hair stands at crazy angles and his eyes are red-rimmed, matching Malia’s own eyes that are still puffy. They both look exhausted, but they wear excited smiles to match the dark circles under their eyes. 

“Hey! Congratulations!” Scott says excitedly. 

“She’s beautiful,” Lydia echoes, leaning in closer to Scott to better see his phone. “How are you feeling, Malia?” 

“My vagina hurts,” Malia answers matter-of-factly. Stiles tries to cover his laughter with a cough before placing a kiss on the side of her temple. 

“But she was awesome,” Stiles says, glancing quickly back and forth between the two of them and Malia. He shakes a little on the screen, too, the way he does when he’s late on an adderall does. Scott makes a mental note to text him before they get on the plane, just in case he forgot his meds in the rush to get to the hospital that morning. “Seriously. She gave birth like. A. _Boss_.” He cuts himself off to press another kiss to Malia’s temple, her smile still bright. “And Norah’s perfect,” he gushes when he pulls away. “She’s four pounds, and she’s got a set of lungs. They’ve got her on a little bit of oxygen right now, but you should’ve heard her cry. Wait till you see her.” 

“We can’t wait,” Lydia says. Out of the corner of his eye, Scott catches Lydia raising her hand towards her face. When he turns to watch her, he just catches her wiping away a tear sliding down the side of her nose. 

“Yeah,” Scott agrees, giving Lydia’s shoulder a squeeze. “We want to meet her as soon as we get there.” 

Malia’s smile falters, and Scott can almost feel the way she visibly shakes in his own chest when she takes a deep breath. “They took her away,” she tells them sorrowfully. 

“Just to get her settled in the NICU,” Stiles is quick to add, hand rubbing Malia’s shoulder. “She’s gonna have to stay there for a little while, till her breathing is better and she learns to eat. They have her on a feeding tube right now too, but everything looks really good. We’re just waiting for the all clear for Malia, and then we’re heading there too.” Again, Stiles stops to kiss the side of Malia’s head, like there’s a magnet constantly drawing him back to that same spot. A week ago, Scott would’ve watched that constant pull between the two of them and envied them. Now, he finds himself hoping that he still looks at Lydia that way a decade from now. “Are you in Chicago now?” Stiles asks when he pulls away again. 

Scott nods. “Our flight boards in ten minutes, and then it’s four hours to San Francisco.” 

“Well, text us when you land. Your mom said she’ll get you guys in to meet Norah, no matter how late it is.” 

“Good. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re on our way.” 

“We love you guys,” Lydia adds. “Congratulations again.” 

“Thanks. It means a lot,” Stiles says. 

“We love you too,” Malia adds. 

Scott is seconds away from ending the call when Stiles suddenly speaks up again. “Oh! How was Boston?” he asks. 

“It was good,” Scott says as he focuses on Lydia instead of the screen. She turns her head to meet his gaze with a warm smile to match his own. “Really good.” 

Lydia’s hand slides up to rest on his cheek, tilting his head down so she can leave a soft kiss on his mouth. When Scott pulls away a second later, he just catches the victory high-five Stiles and Malia just shared on screen. 

“We knew you’d love it,” he says with a quick wink. “We’ll see you guys soon. Stiles leans in to press one more kiss against her cheek, and then they disappear from view, replaced by Scott’s wallpaper. Scott barely notices, though, too busy pressing another kiss of his own against Lydia’s lips, overwhelmed by the contagious happiness of their friends mixed with the newness of his own relationship with Lydia. 

He pulls away sooner than he wants to. Just like he forced himself out of bed sooner than he wanted to that morning, and he stopped fighting sleep sooner than he wanted to the night before. He bends down to pick up both of their carry-ons from where they rest at their feet, but he stops suddenly when she grabs his arm. 

“Thank you,” she says, her voice soft but sincere. “For coming. And for making today better. No one’s ever done that before.” 

“I want to,” he tells her as he rests his hands on her hips and pulls her just a little closer. “I want to help you figure this out. I want to help you do more than just find the bodies.” 

“I’d like that.” Leaning up on her tiptoes, she seals her promise with a kiss. Before either of them is ready, a voice overhead announces that boarding is beginning for their flight, and their forced to pull away again. “You know,” she tells him as he bends down a second time to pick up their bags. “There’s no snow in California.” 

“Yeah?” he questions playfully as he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her closer to his side. “Guess I’ll have to come back to Boston then.” 

They’re heading back to a whirlwind of activity, with the holidays and the new baby and the pack coming together for the first time in months. And there’s a long list of conversations they still need to have. Like how this will work with them living on opposite coastlines, for starters, and how they’ll go about telling the rest of the pack, and what exactly this is, now that they’re both too far in to turn back around. But they’re conversations that can wait, he decides as he settles into a seat beside Lydia on the plane, her fingers already laced between his own. 

Before the plane takes off, he slips his phone out of his pocket to message Stiles one last time. _You’re the best man. Seriously can’t thank you guys enough_ , he types. _I think I might really love the snow_.


End file.
